Kill off the ID card scheme

No2ID has heard rumours that Home Secretary Alan Johnson is “reviewing the ID card” scheme, with a view to delaying or killing it off. Any delay of a year or more will effectively kill it off because the Tories plan to scrap it anyway.

It would be a pragmatic move on the part of Johnson, since spending money the government doesn’t have on an ID card scheme the country doesn’t want, which will be scrapped anyway, will help plug the massive hole in treasury coffers.

The Identity Cards Act 2006 was never a complete system. It left vast amounts about the card, and the database, enrolment and enforcement, to be determined in regulations. The first batch of those regulations has appeared and MPs will be able to vote against them at a debate scheduled for July. Together they are far longer than the act itself, and there are numerous points of revealing detail and sheer bad drafting which give scope for legal and political attack. If the regulations are not approved by parliament the whole scheme will be stalled.

Please write to your MP now, *particularly if you have a Labour MP* and ask them to vote against the new statutory instruments that would allow the ID scheme to begin.